Jazz was the 20th century's first new music, America's first musical gift to the world, and the musical genre most keenly associated with the world of style. A new book, Jazz: New York in the Roaring Twenties, is a unique survey of the music being made in the Big Apple during this period by artists from all over the US. While the book is a very welcome and easily digestible survey of the highlights of the decade, it's distinguished and defined by the superb illustrations by Mr Robert Nippoldt.

The book comes with an excellent CD that features 20 pioneering recordings, from 1917's "Livery Stable Blues" by the Original Dixieland Jass Band, the first ever jazz recording, through to Mr Louis Armstrong's heartbreaking "Black and Blue" and "Freakish" by Jelly Roll Morton. Mr Nippoldt's illustrations capture the personality and style of the 24 musicians who appear in the book, as well as evoking the environment, culture and milieu of the jazz scene in the 1920s. Click through the slides, above, to meet eight men who helped define the age.